What does it mean to optimize a website?

There are several elements of a website that can be considered for optimization. When optimizing, a good web designer will try and find the appropriate balance* between these components, from the point of view of the site design and the site objective.

Elements that should be considered for optimization include accessibility, usability, search engine visibility and overall page download speed.

Some people may find it strange to place accessibility and usability as something that should be optimized; however, the Internet is a global topic. While the web exploded in North America, many other countries lagged behind and are still playing catch-up today.

The importance of ideas of usability and accessibility will eventually become recognized on a global scale, but for now there are many countries where the web design lessons that for years have been cascading through North America are still just being learnt.

In these countries, newer sites may contain the latest well thought out accessible and usable design (provided the designer can show the client that these qualities have benefits), many existing sites will need to be retrofitted or ‘optimized’ if they aren’t fully redesigned.